Virosome: An engineered virus for vaccine delivery

Abstract

The purpose of immunization is the effective cellular and humoral immune response against antigens. Several studies on novel vaccine delivery approaches such as micro-particles, liposomes & nanoparticles, etc. against infectious diseases have been investigated so far. In contrast to the conventional approaches in vaccine development, a virosomes-based vaccine represents the next generation in the field of immunization because of its balance between efficacy and tolerability by virtue of its mechanism of immune instigation. The versatility of virosomes as a vaccine adjuvant, and delivery vehicle of molecules of different nature, such as peptides, nucleic acids, and proteins, as well as provide an insight into the prospect of drug targeting using virosomes. This article focuses on the basics of virosomes, structure, composition formulation and development, advantages, interplay with the immune system, current clinical status, different patents highlighting the applications of virosomes and their status, recent advances, and research associated with virosomes, the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of virosomes based vaccines and the future prospective.

Keywords: Adjuvant; Immunization; Liposome; Vaccine; Virosome.

Fig. 1

Electron micrographs of empty virosome (A), and OVA-loaded virosome (B) (Bungener et al., 2002).

Fig. 2

Diagrammatic representation of the interplay of virosomes with the immune system (Huckriede et al., 2003b).

Fig. 3

Diagrammatic illustration of cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) (Wang et al., 2022).

Fig. 4

Flow chart of process of synthesis of virosome using cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) system.